New Assimil Books: Latin and Chinese

[ilmari]

It may have been already posted elsewhere, but here is some interesting news for all of us who read or speak French.

Assimil has recently published two important books.

1. A new edition of the legendary 1960s Latin method of Clément Desessard. It replaces the 2007 book of Isabelle Ducos-Filipi.
http://fr.assimil.com/methodes/le-latin-294
As far as I know, this is the first time Assimil scraps a newer book and goes back to an older version.

2. A new Chinese method, written by Hélène Arthus, which replaces the venerable Philippe Kantor's book, first published in the mid-1970s.
http://fr.assimil.com/methodes/le-chinois
Although their Chinese method needed an upgrade, it may be difficult to make better than Kantor in teaching Chinese within the Assimil format.

[Snow]

Has anyone tried the new Chinese version? Can someone please post a review here? Thank you.

[ilmari]

I haven't seen the new Assimil Chinese yet, but you can listen to three lessons (1, 50 and 100) here:
http://fr.assimil.com/methodes/le-chinois#pack-cd-livre-cd-audio
Sounds quite good, like all the Assimil recordings.

[AlexTG]

So what's with going back to an older version of Latin? Was the newer one really bad?

[sillygoose1]

So what's with going back to an older version of Latin? Was the newer one really bad?

Each lesson was extremely short with way too many notes. There was really no room to progress with that version.

[ilmari]

The old one was maybe the most venerated cult books Assimil has ever published, and had many fervent followers.
You can read more about it here:
http://avitus.alcuinus.net/schola_latina/info1_en.php
This new release of the French version was preceded by new releases of Italian and German versions.

[Thunter]

I would be really interested in a comparison between the old and new Assimil Chinese for I have learned Chinese with the older edition.

[Speakeasy]

I have not studied Chinese. However, in response to Thunter’s post, upon checking Amazon.fr, I noticed that there are presently two “5-star” evaluations of the recently-published edition of Assimil Le Chinois. I have prepared and provided below, without the permission of the Amazon Customers, perhaps the most liberal and unprofessional translations that you will ever encounter.

Amazon.fr, Customer Review 1
Le Chinois is a completely new edition of the celebrated Assimil method. The dialogues are lively, funny, and varied. The sound recordings are clear and understandable. The suggestions for further personal research in the Chinese civilization are chosen judiciously. In summary, this is an excellent method either for discovering Mandarin or for reactivating one’s knowledge in cases where one has had some previous exposure.

Amazon.fr, Customer Review 2
The previous work from 30 years ago had become rather dated and this latest edition is very clearly superior to the former. Since then, China has become a major power destined to supplant others (NDLR: not responsible for the non sequitur). The vocabulary is quite useful. In addition, at the end of each lesson, the reader is presented with topics that will help guide his further studies. One has the impression of actually visiting China with this work, of abandoning oneself (to the language and the culture) and, in this, the book achieves its goal. By studying Chinese, one learns to think completely differently, to educate one’s ears and eyes (through contact with the language’s tonal shapes and ideograms). A bit of advice: before deciding to study Chinese, learn the ideograms, as they serve to unlock the language. Generally speaking, a choice exists in writing books, either from a technical approach, or in a manner that actually speaks to the reader, and here, the authors have surpassed their goal!

[michal]

About the latest Assimil Chinese:

I am at an advanced beginner / low intermediate level in Chinese and already owned and had used Kantor's book when the new edition was published. I decided to buy the new method, even though I knew that sometimes a new Assimil book falls short of the level reached by a previous version. My experience has been that I can usually benefit from a new edition even if the amount of material covered is lower - additional practice is useful. (Obviously one always needs to check if the "new" edition is really new or a minor update of the previous one.)

That being said, I was pleasantly surprised. The amount of material covered appears to have gone up, if anything: I counted the number of items in the vocabulary list, the old edition had about 1250 words, the new one has about 2350. The modernization of vocabulary and topics has been done intelligently, if you like Assimil, you will probably like the sentence: "She is reading her text messages while driving - she really has no fear of death." There is a lesson towards the end dealing with the issue of Chinese speaking people forgetting how to write characters due to use of computers and cell phones. So Assimil Chinese has arrived in the 21st century.

I would recommend the new edition to anyone who is ok with the Assimil method, even if you already heave the previous edition. You can benefit from the book unless you are definitely out of beginners' territory in your Chinese. The previous method by Kantor is great too; there is nothing wrong with getting both editions if you can.

[Thunter]

About the latest Assimil Chinese:

I am at an advanced beginner / low intermediate level in Chinese and already owned and had used Kantor's book when the new edition was published. I decided to buy the new method, even though I knew that sometimes a new Assimil book falls short of the level reached by a previous version. My experience has been that I can usually benefit from a new edition even if the amount of material covered is lower - additional practice is useful. (Obviously one always needs to check if the "new" edition is really new or a minor update of the previous one.)

That being said, I was pleasantly surprised. The amount of material covered appears to have gone up, if anything: I counted the number of items in the vocabulary list, the old edition had about 1250 words, the new one has about 2350. The modernization of vocabulary and topics has been done intelligently, if you like Assimil, you will probably like the sentence: "She is reading her text messages while driving - she really has no fear of death." There is a lesson towards the end dealing with the issue of Chinese speaking people forgetting how to write characters due to use of computers and cell phones. So Assimil Chinese has arrived in the 21st century.

I would recommend the new edition to anyone who is ok with the Assimil method, even if you already heave the previous edition. You can benefit from the book unless you are definitely out of beginners' territory in your Chinese. The previous method by Kantor is great too; there is nothing wrong with getting both editions if you can.

This is awsome news!
Is the vocabulary all in the lessons or is additional vocabulary added to the attachment to reach this amount of words? In Dutch for example they added additional vocabulary so that the reader needn't buy a dictionary. I ask this because I normally review my languages with the audio while beeing at the gym. If the words are only to be found in the attachment I have no use for them. Thanks for your answer.